Obama is scared and so am I

In the Atlantic on August 20th, Russell Berman said Obama looked scared. Barack Obama is scared and so am I. We are scared because Trump might win. We are scared because we wonder if this unabated violence is an accidental event that is making authoritarianism appear more palatable than democracy.

This presidential election should be an easy one just like 2016 should have been easy for Hillary. Trump might win in 2020 for the same reason Hillary lost in 2016. The Democrats forgot to invite someone to the party. White Men.

White men do not represent America but they are the marrow of America. They are hidden in the bone. Their most desired public credential is to be left alone. They go by names like working class, blue collar, or rural electorate. If White male voters choose law and order over democracy, Trump will be reelected. We only need to look at the 1972 Presidential Election. In spite of the medias haranguing of Nixon, the anti-war movement, and campus unrest, he won in the greatest landslide in history.

I was watching Hillary Clinton give a speech in either North or South Carolina in the summer of 2016. As she approached the crescendo of her speech, she mentioned every identity group in the political spectrum; all but one...White men. She didn't even use the metaphors for White men. It was in July and I figured that she would have lots of time and opportunity to be more inclusive but she never was.

I remember that her exclusion of White men from her speech bothered me but not that much. I can overlook a slight for the greater good. But what about those White guys in rural PA, Michigan, and Wisconsin who aren't as forgiving as I am; who don't have Black grandchildren and a Puerto Rican wife?

Hillary's oversight was the greatest blunder in American political history. Now, as I watch the Democrat convention and note the absence of White male faces and hear from some the celebration of that absence, I think the Democrats are making the same mistake as Hillary. There is a difference. Hillary's mistake was inadvertent due to overconfidence. This time the exclusion is against the backdrop of racial strife, disorder, and violence. Most importantly the exclusion is not inadvertent. The invitation was not lost in the mail. It was never posted.

Obama knows the dangers of identity politics. He was raised by White people. He knows how the slings and arrows can go both ways.

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune...(Hamlet)

He knows how self-defeating Critical Race Theory can be when thrown around by ideologues like Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers who never have to bear the consequences of lost livelihoods and shuttered communities. He knows how close to the precipice this election could be when he hears pundits like Ana Navarro applaud the absence of white faces. He knows as he watches how unbridled youth out of excess of love, as Yeats would say, are changed utterly on the streets of Kenosha and he wonders as all of us do, “Who can bring an end to it?”

Obama's face is not the face of an optimist. His face is not a racial face; it is a human face. Yes, Christlike if caricatured. He is asking us to forgive the Romans so that the Temple can remain standing.

No matter how unappealing White men are to the base of the Democrat Party, the base must reach out to them even if the reach is inauthentic and ingenuine. Hypocrisy is a lesser evil than Trump and the cult of an authoritarian personality that would make what happened in Kenosha seem like a day at the State Fair.

If you wash the White man's feet now, you only need wash your hands of him after the election and by the way, the color doesn't come off.